Journey as Destination

A very big part of being happy is getting and keeping perspective. The annoyances and disappointments of daily life can be managed much more effectively if you keep an eye on the bigger picture. Unruly children underfoot and loud during weekends when you're trying to work or rest? Ah well, you have a healthy and creative family. Overburdened with more than your share of the workload at the office? No matter, you're adding to your resume and your network while gaining professional recognition. I suppose one could view perspective as optimism.

Summer is great for perspective-gathering, with its opportunities of space and time. My favorite perspective-gaining method? Travel. What better place to dream, ponder and envision the future while the details of earthly life are literally miles underneath you - you soaring above it all with nothing but huge sky, stars and sun embracing you? I usually write, read, simply sit and be still during long plane rides. Once you arrive, the newness of most places allows your mind to adjust as if you have moved to a new city, a new home - even if it's just for a day. You are a citizen of that place, albeit as a newcomer. I'm sure you've experienced it and maybe realize it most once you return to your own home - your house looks and smells different, your children seem to have grown... And if your family has traveled with you, then you all come home changed, expanded. This happens on all trips, no matter where you've gone or even if the travel experience was positive. As T.S. Eliot said,

The journey, not the arrival, is what matters.

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This summer, please take some time to see new places and see yourself in new ways. I'd love to hear about your journeys and how they bring perspective to your life and work.

One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. Henry Miller

Photo: The Links at Spanish Bay, first tee, sunrise, July 2011, Pebble Beach Resorts, California

Intrinsic Joy vs. the Checklist

One of the ways to increase your happiness in the workplace is to figure out which tasks and projects bring you “intrinsic” fulfillment rather than fulfillment after the fact (as in, you’re pleased when you check it off your “to do” list or your boss gives you a nod of recognition or it looks good on your resume). Probably many of you are scratching your heads now, puzzled at the concept. I did, too, when my friend and amazing coach Joyce Bader urged me to think about what intrinsically fulfills me as I continue my transition this summer. We Westerners don’t talk or think about intrinsic joy very much – more we focus on results, the external evidence of our achievements.

So probably no surprise that when I Googled “intrinsic joy,” a bunch of Eastern religious websites and blogs popped up. Here’s a definition from one:

(Intrinsic joy) is organic, that is, it arises from and resides within the organism itself. It's a substance that flows within the body, not an idea in the mind. It's part of the machinery of our lives, not part of the concept of them.

What that means to me is: when I’m doing a task (writing this blog, for example), does the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard, the sound of their clicking, watching the letters form neat rows on the screen, seeing the pages fill, imagining the response of you, the audience… do those things satisfy me and make me happy? Or more, does it make me happy to say I’ve done it?

I’m a runner and heard another runner say once that they didn’t particularly enjoy running, but they loved “having run.” There is something to a great feeling of accomplishment, after all. Getting a to do list completed should make us proud. Intrinsic fulfillment is something different.

When you’re putting your child to bed at night – does it make you happy to lie with them and slowly turn page after page in their favorite book, listening to their little comments and giggles, enjoying the softness of their bed, the stillness of the house…? Or more, does it make you feel like you’ve done a good job as a parent, after the fact, that you read the story to them? Of course there’s nothing wrong with both feelings – we’re just trying to focus on WHY we make the choices we do about, in our topic today, work and work-related tasks.

It might be worth bringing awareness to – what makes you happy DURING a task or project. It could lead to an overall more satisfying work experience, especially if you can create more of those things every day.

I’d be interested to hear what you come up with!
Thanks,
Jaya

Happiness is… running in the early summer morning, the warmth from the previous night and coming day embracing and soothing, the breezes refreshing… life fully in me and ahead.

Designing Happiness - A Summer Series

Everywhere you turn these days, you bump into happiness. It’s become quite a trend, from books to magazine surveys to celebrity interviews, and it’s reached the business world. With the release of The Harris Poll's Annual Happiness Index recently and the resulting media and business attention, it seems this cake is now iced! I’m intrigued. As I delve into finding new meaning and resolve in my communication career and as summer truly heats up, I feel this is an important and topic to explore, from personal and professional angles So in the next couple of months, I plan to use the summer “break” to look at happiness – near and long term. Please join me, and let me know which parts resonate with you!

I’ve drawn four major themes from the recent literature: Health and Happiness; Happiness in Relationships, Happiness in the Workplace and Happiness in general. I’ll mix and match and go in between these topics, as they are all interrelated, one directly impacting the other.

Part One - Happiness in the Workplace: Declare Your Independence
As communicators and business people, we know that a happy and engaged workforce is crucial to business outcomes including sales, productivity and impact on health and quality of life. Companies, probably including yours and those of your clients, invest a lot of money in engagement studies, leadership training, and motivational programs to keep their employees happily productive. Sadly, recent research says those efforts probably aren’t working. Shawn Achor (author of The Happiness Advantage and founder of GoodThink, Inc.) in a recent Harvard Business Review article, http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/the_happiness_dividend.html cited the Conference Board Survey from this year, which found that employees were the unhappiest they have been in 22 years. Around the same time, CNNMoney reported a survey that indicated 84% of Americans are unhappy with their current job. And earlier this month, Mercer's "What's Working" survey found that one in three US employees are serious about leaving their current jobs.

So it appears that despite best efforts of companies, their employees are struggling to be happy in the workplace. Achor and others suggest that employees stop waiting for companies to get it right, and start claiming happiness for themselves, as individuals. I wholeheartedly support this. I don’t think companies should abandon any of their trainings or surveys-quite the opposite – they should take an even deeper look and find EFFECTIVE methods of dealing with ROOT CAUSES related to employee unhappiness or dissatisfaction. I do think, in addition and simultaneously, all of us as employees can own our work experiences. We can do what we need to be happy each day, each month, each year.

Maybe you’d like to try some of these tips (I’ve adapted from Achor) – and add your own. I plan to try. Let me know how it goes for you!

1. First thing each day, thank someone on your team, your boss, a professional colleague, a mentor with a quick (and heartfelt) thank you email or call.
2. Focus on the positive Write down three new things you are grateful for each day that relate to your work experience. I know – on some days, three will seem an impossible number – keep thinking about it, you’ll find them. Small things count. Even “I’m grateful that the printer is only ten steps from my office” or “I’m glad my boss is on vacation” or “I appreciate the AC being the perfect temperature today…” – you get the idea. It’s about training your brain to focus on what’s good.

So to a degree, you can be independent of what goes on in your company, while you also try to influence the company itself to be more effective when it comes to your happiness and that of your peers. What better time than now to embrace that independence!

Happy holiday weekend, everyone!
Jaya

Happiness is… meeting new colleagues you also count as friends!